After Atlas: The Planetfall Series, Book 2

Gov-corp detective Carlos Moreno was only a baby when Atlas left Earth to seek truth among the stars. But in that moment, the course of Carlos' entire life changed. Atlas is what took his mother away; what made his father lose hope; what led Alejandro Casales, leader of the religious cult known as the Circle, to his door. And now, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of Atlas' departure, it has something to do with why Casales was found dead in his hotel room.

Ghost Talkers

Ginger Stuyvesant, an American heiress living in London during World War I, is engaged to Captain Benjamin Hartshorne, an intelligence officer. Ginger is a medium for the Spirit Corps, a special Spiritualist force. Each soldier heading for the front is conditioned to report to the mediums of the Spirit Corps when they die so the corps can pass instant information about troop movements to military intelligence. Ginger and her fellow mediums contribute a great deal to the war efforts, so long as they pass the information through appropriate channels.

Dark Orbit

Reports of a strange, new habitable world have reached the 20 Planets of human civilization. When a team of scientists is assembled to investigate, exoethnologist Sara Callicot is recruited to keep an eye on an unstable crewmate. Thora was once a member of the interplanetary elite, but since her prophetic delusions helped mobilize a revolt on Orem, she's been banished to the farthest reaches of space to minimize the risk her very presence may pose.

Russell Neches says:"Irreverent respect for natural and social science"

Aurora

A major new novel from one of science fiction's most powerful voices, Aurora tells the incredible story of our first voyage beyond the solar system. Brilliantly imagined and beautifully told, it is the work of a writer at the height of his powers.

Between Two Thorns: The Split Worlds Series, Book 1

The new season is starting and the Master of Ceremonies is missing. Max, an Arbiter of the Split Worlds Treaty, is assigned with the task of finding him - with no one to help but a dislocated soul and a mad sorcerer. There is a witness, but his memories have been bound by magical chains only the enemy can break. A rebellious woman trying to escape her family may prove to be the ally Max needs. But can she be trusted? And why does she want to give up eternal youth and the life of privilege she’s been born into?

Everfair

Everfair is a wonderful neo-Victorian alternate history novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from Great Britian join forces with African American missionaries to purchase land from the Belgian Congo's "owner", King Leopold II. This land, named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary utopia for native populations of the Congo, as well as escaped slaves returning from America.

The Obelisk Gate: The Broken Earth, Book 2

This is the way the world ends, for the last time. The season of endings grows darker, as civilization fades into the long cold night. Essun - once Damaya, once Syenite, now avenger - has found shelter, but not her daughter. Instead there is Alabaster Tenring, destroyer of the world, with a request. But if Essun does what he asks, it would seal the fate of the Stillness forever. Far away, her daughter Nassun is growing in power - and her choices will break the world.

Lightless

Serving aboard the Ananke, an experimental military spacecraft launched by the ruthless organization that rules Earth and its solar system, computer scientist Althea has established an intense emotional bond - not with any of her crewmates but with the ship's electronic systems, which speak more deeply to her analytical mind than human feelings do. But when a pair of fugitive terrorists gain access to the Ananke, Althea must draw upon her heart and soul for the strength to defend her beloved ship.

Luna: New Moon

As the leader of the moon's newest "dragon", Adriana has wrested control of the moon's helium-3 industry from the Mackenzie Metal Corporation and fought to earn her family's new status. Now, at the twilight of her life, Adriana finds her corporation, Corta Helio, surrounded by the many enemies she made during her meteoric rise. If the Corta family is to survive, Adriana's five children must defend their mother's empire from her many enemies - and each other.

We Are Legion (We Are Bob): Bobiverse, Book 1

Bob Johansson has just sold his software company and is looking forward to a life of leisure. There are places to go, books to read, and movies to watch. So it's a little unfair when he gets himself killed crossing the street. Bob wakes up a century later to find that corpsicles have been declared to be without rights, and he is now the property of the state. He has been uploaded into computer hardware and is slated to be the controlling AI in an interstellar probe looking for habitable planets.

Arkwright

In the vein of classic authors such as Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke, Nathan Arkwright is a seminal author of the 20th century. At the end of his life he becomes reclusive and cantankerous, refusing to appear before or interact with his legion of fans. Little does anyone know, Nathan is putting into motion his true timeless legacy. Convinced that humanity cannot survive on Earth, his Arkwright Foundation dedicates itself to creating a colony on an earthlike planet several light-years distant.

Amazon Customer says:"Simplistic storyline with way too much melodrama"

Infomocracy: A Novel

It's been 20 years and two election cycles since Information, a powerful search engine monopoly, pioneered the switch from warring nation-states to global microdemocracy. The corporate coalition party Heritage has won the last two elections. With another election on the horizon, the Supermajority is in tight contention, and everything's on the line.

AudioBook Reviewer says:"At heart, this novel is a political thriller"

The Fifth Season: The Broken Earth, Book 1

This is the way the world ends. For the last time. A season of endings has begun. It starts with the great, red rift across the heart of the world's sole continent, spewing ash that blots out the sun. It starts with death, with a murdered son and a missing daughter. It starts with betrayal and long-dormant wounds rising up to fester. This is the Stillness, a land long familiar with catastrophe, where the power of the Earth is wielded as a weapon. And where there is no mercy.

Extreme Makeover

Lyle Fontanelle is the chief scientist for NewYew, a health and beauty company experimenting with a new antiaging hand lotion. As more and more anomalies crop up in testing, Lyle realizes that the lotion's formula has somehow gone horribly wrong. It is actively overwriting the DNA of anyone who uses it, turning them into physical clones of someone else. Lyle wants to destroy the formula, but NewYew thinks it might be the greatest beauty product ever designed - and the world's governments think it's the greatest weapon.

Not Alone

When Dan McCarthy stumbles upon a folder containing evidence of the conspiracy to end all conspiracies - a top-level alien cover-up - he leaks the files without a second thought. The incredible truth revealed by Dan's leak immediately captures the public's imagination, but Dan's relentless commitment to exposing the cover-up and forcing disclosure quickly earns him some enemies in high places.

All the Birds in the Sky

Childhood friends Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armstead didn't expect to see each other again after parting ways under mysterious circumstances during high school. After all, the development of magical powers and the invention of a two-second time machine could hardly fail to alarm one's peers and families. But now they're both adults, living in the hipster mecca San Francisco, and the planet is falling apart around them.

The Traitor Baru Cormorant

In Seth Dickinson's highly anticipated debut The Traitor Baru Cormorant, a richly imagined geopolitical fantasy, a young woman from a conquered people tries to transform an empire. Baru Cormorant believes any price is worth paying to liberate her people - even her soul.

Version Control: A Novel

Rebecca Wright has reclaimed her life, finding her way out of her grief and depression following a personal tragedy years ago. She spends her days working in customer support for the Internet dating site where she first met her husband. But she has a strange, persistent sense that everything around her is somewhat off-kilter: She constantly feels as if she has walked into a room and forgotten what she intended to do there; on TV, the president seems to be the wrong person in the wrong place; her dreams are full of disquiet.

Crosstalk

In a not-too-distant future, a simple outpatient procedure that has been promised to increase empathy between romantic partners has become all the rage. So when Briddey Flannigan's fiancé proposes that he and Briddey undergo the procedure, she is delighted! Only, the results aren't quite as expected. Instead of gaining an increased empathetic link with her fiancé, Briddey finds herself hearing the actual thoughts of one of the nerdiest techs in her office. And that's the least of her problems.

Dark Matter: A Novel

"Are you happy with your life?" Those are the last words Jason Dessen hears before the masked abductor knocks him unconscious. Before he awakens to find himself strapped to a gurney, surrounded by strangers in hazmat suits. Before a man Jason's never met smiles down at him and says, "Welcome back, my friend."

Saturn Run

The year is 2066. A Caltech intern inadvertently notices an anomaly from a space telescope - something is approaching Saturn and decelerating. Space objects don't decelerate. Spaceships do. A flurry of top-level government meetings produces the inescapable conclusion: Whatever built that ship is at least one hundred years ahead in hard and soft technology, and whoever can get their hands on it exclusively and bring it back will have an advantage so large, no other nation can compete.

The Book of the Unnamed Midwife: The Road to Nowhere, Book 1

When she fell asleep, the world was doomed. When she awoke, it was dead. In the wake of a fever that decimated the earth's population - killing women and children and making childbirth deadly for the mother and infant - the midwife must pick her way through the bones of the world she once knew to find her place in this dangerous new one. Gone are the pillars of civilization. All that remains is power - and the strong who possess it.

The Reality Dysfunction: Night's Dawn Trilogy, Book 1

In AD 2600, the human race is finally beginning to realize its full potential. Hundreds of colonized planets scattered across the galaxy host a multitude of prosperous and wildly diverse cultures. Genetic engineering has pushed evolution far beyond nature's boundaries, defeating disease and producing extraordinary spaceborn creatures. Huge fleets of sentient trader starships thrive on the wealth created by the industrialization of entire star systems, and throughout inhabited space the Confederation Navy keeps the peace.

Chasing Shadows: Sekret Machines Series, Book 1

The witnesses are legion, scattered across the world and dotted through history, people who looked up and saw something impossible lighting up the night sky. What those objects were, where they came from, and who - or what - might be inside them is the subject of fierce debate and equally fierce mockery, so that most who glimpsed them came to wish they hadn't. Most, but not everyone.

Publisher's Summary

Renata Ghali believed in Lee Suh-Mi's vision of a world far beyond Earth, a planet promising to reveal the truth about our place in the cosmos, untainted by overpopulation, pollution, and war. Ren believed in that vision enough to give up everything to follow Suh-Mi into the unknown.

More than 20 years have passed since Ren and the rest of the faithful braved the starry abyss and established a colony at the base of an enigmatic alien structure where Suh-Mi has since resided alone. Ren has worked hard as the colony's 3-D printer engineer, creating the tools necessary for human survival in an alien environment - and harboring a devastating secret.

For the good of her fellow colonists, Ren continues to perpetuate the lie forming the foundation of the colony, despite the personal cost. Then a stranger appears, far too young to have been part of the first planetfall, a man who bears a remarkable resemblance to Suh-Mi.

The truth Ren has concealed since planetfall can no longer be hidden, and its revelation could tear the colony apart.

What talent Emma Newman has! To write and narrate with such beauty, she must be an amazing person in real life. The only reason this book does not get 5 stars is the ending. It was too fast and short at the very end. I left wanting just a little bit more to feel satisfied. Otherwise, this story has not been told before. If there was a sequel, that would help fix the abrupt ending.

Sci-Fi by its very nature tends to be at least somewhat derivative; this book, not so much. The world inhabited by narrator Ren is interesting. Due her position in the original expedition and her unusual talent for wielding a 3-D printer, she holds a special place in the community. But she's strange: Why does she have such a hard time forming relationships? What are she and colony leader Mack hiding? What's behind the weird religion on the planet? And why won't Ren let anyone enter her home?

Emma Newman gets points for some interesting world-building. The idea of an economy based on massive recycling and manufacture by 3-D printing makes the rapid development of the colony feasible. Pretty good character development, lots of surprises, awesome ending. There is just enough of "back when we were still on earth" to give insight to what makes Ren tick, as well as what drove the group into space, without over-explaining. When we get to the core of Ren's problems, the treatment of emotional scarring is handled gently and believably.

One gripe: Newman could have cut out at least half of the obscenities. They were unnecessary and distracting.

As for the narration, I don't know how it could be any better. The author/reader doesn't try to "do voices", just gives a straight-forward reading that completely works.

Good book: all the way through, I kept thinking I was going to hate the ending. I thought I had it all figured out. Boy was I wrong, on both counts.

Well written with good story and character development, Planetfall creates a futuristic world where all too normal human conditions are explored.

With interesting plot twists, and no forced revelations, the story develops through stages, introducing the character in her different roles as scientist, engineer, lover, partner in crime, mental illness sufferer and ultimately enlightened human. It's not a iterate treasure, but a story you get sucked into until the end. In true British fashion, the end comes as the conclusion, perhaps to the dismay of many readers who might want that final plot twist that leaves you hanging. There's no questions left by the ending, but still so many things to explore throughout the story.

The story itself is slow to start and with chapters that seem to add little to the general arc except to point out the main characters flaws. Once it gets going, towards the latter third of the book, it barrels forward. Think of a rollercoaster with a long, shallow climb, and at the top, a vertical drop down onto pavement. The ending is abrupt and unsatisfying with no resolution to anything that happens in the story itself. Why did this character do that? What is the significance of this? Why drag out a mysterious back story if the conclusion is already told to us?With the amount of world building that's done, it feels more like this was supposed to be a larger story, but at the end it was rushed for deadlines or something. It had potential, but unfortunately it seemed to fumble at the end.

This book was a fantastic piece to listen to. The author/narrator has a beautiful voice that infused so much life into the dialogue and fostered a ton of sympathy for the protagonist.

I was a bit wary of downloading this book because of how people reviewed the ending, but I thought it fit well.

Without trying to give too much away, I believe a big theme of the book is the Buddhist idea that "to live is to suffer," and a broken person like Ren is a good person to explore this. She's constantly fleeing from her pain to no effect, and I think the ending works in context. By looking forward she can finally let her suffering pass, rather than looking back as she did for most of the book.

I have to admit I'm torn over this review. The story began with such promise, and mystery, but was caught up in the main character's flaw to a point it was beyond a plot arc to become a distraction. Honestly I had to back up and listen to several chapters to really understand what the hell just happened.I imagine the author intends to make this into a series with the vague and open end of the story. It's like one of the movies you think ended where it did because the producer ran out of funds for the more film.Being an author, I'm not a fan of recording my own work for an audio-book but Emma does a pretty good job capturing her character's emotional states down to subtle nuance. I appreciate her narration efforts.But, as a writer, I found myself wincing at the - far too many - F bombs and S bombs. I felt in the circle of characters Emma has created their IQ would has been high enough to remove the frequency of bad language from the story's culture.However, having said all of the above, the story did keep me engaged and motivated to hear more, which more than I can say I've been exposed to lately with other more famous authors and their latest works.

I was a more than a bit exasperated at all the needless, annoying, emotional exposition. I understand some of it was helpful conveying the main character's issues, but It was an incredible drag on plot development, and moving the story along. Almost unbearable at times. Definitely not something to be listened to. Reading the old fashioned way probably would have been better.

Wow, this was just plain bad. The exhaustive introspection of the main character is irritating to say the least. I feel like I have been dragged down into the mind of an anxiety tortured hoarder. I can't think of any reason for the way the character babbles on, agonizing on about every decision she makes. I remember yelling at the speaker - OMG just make a fricking decision. PLEASE! I can't think of a single character in the entire performance that I could give a rip about. I wish the author would have spent more time building the character, and less time gabbering on about her anxieties. Also, if you're going to write a science fiction at least understand that interstellar travel isn’t measured in miles, get the distances right! I counted four times the character (who’s supposed to be an engineer) talks about traveling millions of miles to go to another planet (Uh, interstellar travel has to be measured in light years because of the distances involved). It’s like saying “I’m going Atlanta, a distance of millions of centimeters”.

I will do my best not to spoil this for those who decide to listen. In the end I found that I didn't care about the fate of anyone in the book. I found them all so flawed and in some cases devoid of any redeeming qualities that I prayed for a giant meteor to crash into the planet and kill them all. There is some solid and interesting science fiction in this story and honestly that was what held me to the end but now that I've listened to it all, I won't think about the experience with anything but sadness. I only gave the stars for the performance which was good and the science which was good. I may have missed something but shouldn't you want to root for someone in a book? When your main character is a lying, self loathing hoarder who shuts out the world and never really comes to grips with or apologizes to anyone for those flaws how can you like them?